Hello Folks,
This is an offshoot of the Piracy Redux thread, and an effort to try and clarify issues that seem to have arisen in the Piracy Redux thread regarding the "hunting environment" of pirates.

In order to try and compare apples to apples versus the apple to oranges issues that sometimes creep up in discussions, I'd like to propose the following possible "standards" for use in discussing the original CT rules and the trade/economic rules from CT. Since the history of the Imperium seems to be predicated on the original CT rules to begin with, it would appear that this would be the ideal "methodology" to use.

Now, how does one create a "standard" by which we can measure the effectiveness of J1 cargo ships versus J2 cargo ships? Well, we could do it strictly by displacement. In other words, take two hulls, both at 200 dtons, and build a strictly "legal" book two version of the hulls and using strictly the rules as given in the book. One hull would be built as a Jump 2 hull, while the other hull would be built as a Jump 1 hull.

Another possible standard we can use is that of the "revenue generation" aspects. Thus, we would have to design ships that had the same number of passenger staterooms as well as low berths as well as cargo space allocated for the carrying of cargo. Clearly, the two ships will be of differing hull displacements, but the revenue generation potential will be the same. For the sake of this "mental exercise", I'd like to propose using the same hull size as the standard for comparison rather than the same revenue generation standard.

Ok, using the rules from CT's book 2 ship design rules, lets build the absolute cheapest minimal complexity cargo carrying tramp freighter. Thus, we're going to build a hull whose only purpose is to carry freight/cargo from one location to another. Thus, we're going to design a J1 ship that does nothing more than carry cargo/freight - no passengers.

Jump-A, Manuever-A, Powerplant-A will result in a hull that can achieve a Jump-1, Manuever-1, and powerplant-1 aspect. Total volume used is 15 dtons - thus qualifying us to be able to buy a discounted hull. We want only the bare minimal staterooms, as this will always be an unarmed freighter maximized for cargo hauling. Thus, we need to have only 3 staterooms for our craft - one each for the manditory pilot, engineer, and medic. Net use of volume thus far is 27 dtons (15 for engineroom and 12 for staterooms). We have to allocated 20 dtons for the Bridge. Next, we need to have enough fuel for a jump 1, or 20 dtons for the fuel. Then we need to allocate a total of 10 x Pn for the powerplant usage, or an additional 10 dtons for fuel. Net tonnage used thus far has become 57 dtons. We're not going to include anything else for this craft, as the captain of the ship isn't going to be carrying his own air-raft from world to world. If it has people, it has transportation services for rent. Next, we need to allocated an additional 1 dton for the ship's Model-1 computer. Total volume used within the 200 dton hull is: 15 (drives)+20 (bridge) + 1 (computer) + 12 (stateroom) + 30 (fuel tanks) or 78 dtons. This leaves the ship with a total of 122 dtons for cargo/freight. Cost of the ship is: 2 MCr (hull) + 22 MCr (drives) + 1 MCr (Bridge) + 1.5 MCr (Staterooms) + 2 MCr (Computer) or 28.5 MCr total (not including the 10% discounted costs possible).

Jump-2 version: Drives required are Jump-B, Manuever-A, Powerplant-B to give us Jump-2, Manuever-1, and Powerplant-2. Net Volume for the drives are 23 dtons. Fuel required for this hull will be 40 dtons for the jump and 20 dtons for the powerplant, for a net total of 60 dtons for fuel. All other volume expenditures will be the same as for the J-1 version because it will have but 3 staterooms, 1 dton for the computer, etc. Total volume used:
23 (drives) + 20 (Bridge) + 1 (computer) + 12 (staterooms) + 60 (fuel) or 116 dtons allocated. This leaves us with a total of 84 dtons of cargo space.